The search is on for the new Jonathan Ross even before the old one has been put out to grass – or Sky to give it its correct title. And so far it seems that the one thing all of possible successors share is that they are gay comedians.

Nothing wrong with that of course, but shouldn’t the BBC consider widening the market, so to speak? Must it be that a predilection for double entendres is the one characteristic the new Ross will share with the old one?

God help us all if it’s Graham Norton, a man who makes Carry On movies look like Cecil B de Mille productions; he should have his microphone tucked up his sleeve so that way we could hear him laughing at his own risqué humour.

If the new Wossie is to be a gay comedian, then Norton can only hope that a bolt of lightning strikes Alan Carr – because the Chatty Man is showing that there is a way to live on the edge without making it seem like Rag Week forever.

Then again he may not want to be seen as auditioning for Jonathan’s swivel chair, because his Channel 4 series is already streets ahead of Ross.

It’s like Ross was before he began to believe all of his own publicity; Carr is funny, disarming and bold as brass.

Who else would get away with asking Lindsay Lohan, a woman famous for two things – her love life and turning up at parties – whether she was straight or gay in the immortal words ‘Are you Arthur or are you Martha now?’

Even Lohan, a notoriously difficult guest, couldn’t hold back the laughter – and when she refused to answer, he pressed her further and further ... but in a way that only he could manage.

Or on her drink driving difficulties: “You got caught got drink driving twice and you were in jail for 84 minutes – was it like a drive thru?”

Of course she didn’t respond to either topic in the end, but neither did she storm off the couch. Because even Lindsay knows Carr is the coming star and his Channel 4 show is the hottest gig in town.

It’s not that the producers normally spend a lot of money on high profile guests – the rest of last week’s line-up included comedian Frankie Boyle and ice legends Torville and Dean – but it’s the way that Carr takes them into areas where they’d never intended to go.
And because he’s like a naughty child, he asks the most outrageous of questions without a backlash; as in to Torvill and Dean: “you’ve described your partnership as like a marriage without sex – but how close have you come?”

A few weeks back he asked Sid Owen and Patsy Palmer – Eastenders’ Ricky and Bianca – why they’d come back to the soap after leaving it for so long. And he got them to admit that it was simply about money.

Ross used to be like this in the good old days before it became so formulaic. Some suggest this happened because he’d overstepped the mark once too often, which meant the show had to be recorded and therefore lost its spontaneity. Chatty Man is recorded too but it doesn’t seem any less lively because of that.

Ross, Norton and Carr were all given their chance by Channel 4 where the relative backwaters offer more freedom of expression.
Ross has now run his course, although no doubt he’ll get an even bigger contract to join Sky where no one will ever see him again; Norton also got a big deal to go to the BBC where he is floundering.
 

So Alan Carr should think long and hard before stepping into the Ross hot seat – although in the end money talks and the Beeb has a lot more of it than Channel 4 can ever hope to.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.